


the most picturesque dream he can imagine

by zxrysky



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, More characters will be added along the way, Time Travel, post-game Akira meets pre-game Akira, undecided pairing - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-08-14 15:38:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16495493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zxrysky/pseuds/zxrysky
Summary: Akira's twenty-two, studying literature in university, and every night before he goes to sleep, he thinks about how the entire incident with the Phantom Thieves ended. About how Masayoshi Shidou took away too many people. About how they let Akechi down.He thinks about it every night, and then one night, he falls asleep without thinking about it at all.Then he wakes up in a city five years ago, watching a familiar boy wander over to the couple fighting in the alleyway.





	1. Chapter 1

So it happens like this:

 

He pictures a nice, warm, sunny beach. The wind in his hair, sunglasses on his face, he’s lying on a towel in nothing but a pair of shorts and by god, it feels good. It feels fantastic. There’s an icebox next to him with three bottles of wine just resting there, with condensation beading on its neck and sliding down to drip dark spots against the sand. A palm tree sways gently over his head, offering a cool respite against the sun’s rays pouring down and pooling across his collarbones, falling in rivets down his sternum, spreading across his abdomen.

 

Just him, three bottles of wine and a palm tree, lying on an empty beach with no one there to tell him what do, sea water lapping at his toes and he can feel glee so deep in his chest it feels like a knife wound.

 

He jolts slightly, the immersion ruined by that last thought. A knife wound, Akira thinks in amusement. Pressing a hand over the skin that rests above his heart, he feels it palpitate, throbbing faster than usual at the picture of a knife twisting through his chest.

 

It almost feels real, he thinks, as if there’s a real piece of metal forcing itself through his ribcage and stabbing his heart dead center. He can feel his lips curl up at the thought, at the possibility that after all he’s been through, it’s a knife wound that takes him, at the end.

 

Not Igor, not Akechi, not whatever that wannabe god was named – no, it’s some guy with a knife and an accident waiting to happen.

 

And then he blinks, vision going double, as if rising up from a dead sleep, and all he sees is a dull blue that bleeds into black, three walls encompassing him with long black bars as the fourth, and he’s lying on threadbare cotton sheets lying on the ground.

 

Akira hears her before he sees her. It’s a hurried gasp, tiny hands pressing against his face, against his eyes, trying to force them close as they flutter awake. It’s a firm elbow against his chest, forcing him back down on the makeshift bed in the familiar prison cell as she tries to stop him from getting up and taking stock of his surroundings.

 

He opens his mouth to croak her name out and she presses her palm across it, shushing him before he can even get a word out. His vision clears and he sees her – for the first time in the longest time, he lays his eyes on Lavenza.

 

It amuses him how she hasn’t changed, not in all the years that he hasn’t seen her. The Velvet Room hasn’t been open to him ever since that day ended, when Akechi disappeared and the sky broke open to bleed itself out, and the fake god exploded in a flurry of stars. He remembers seeing her, seeing the real Igor for the very first time, and somehow he finds he’s missed them.

 

Somehow, lying back in this cell, a knife in his chest and his mind fading away, he finds he misses Justine and Caroline, of all things. Not that them rejoining to rediscover their true self is a bad thing, but the horrible twins that strangely weren’t as horrible as he had thought is a nostalgic memory.

 

“It’ll be okay,” Lavenza’s gentle voice passes over him. The words barely register in his mind; the syllables waft through his ears and sing his mind to sleep. “I’ve finally been able to reach you again. I’ll make it all better.”

 

Akira wants to laugh and tell her that he’s actually very certain stabbing a knife through his chest and making him pass out _isn’t_ making him better, but what does he know? Apparently, not enough to fight back against what he’s sure is a god of some sort, because Lavenza can’t be human at all.

 

He wants to know why Igor isn’t here. If anything, he would expect that weird man to have orchestrated all of this, not Lavenza. Or maybe he did, but he just didn’t deem it important enough to be here when Akira’s on his deathbed. Fair point, Akira thinks, mildly hysterical, and Lavenza’s soft hands press harder against his eyelids.

 

Something warm washes over him, and Akira’s just barely coherent enough to think that he won’t be able to meet Ryuji for that Phantom Thieves dinner they’ve been planning for so long, and then he blacks out.

 

 

 

Akira doesn’t wake up. What happens is he comes back into existence at exactly seven-thirty in the evening, dressed like the hipster university student that Futaba always accuses him and Yusuke of being, and the light that precedes his revival is so bright it almost blinds him.

 

He’s also fairly certain it makes that one woman, two houses away, throw her windows wide open and yell at whatever teen is fooling around with firecrackers to tone it down.

 

He turns to stare at her window, wanting to crack to a joke about how old women everywhere haven’t changed no matter where Lavanza’s dumped him in, when he realizes this street looks familiar. Impossibly familiar.

 

Akira hasn’t been back on this street since that fated day where he met the worst man he’s ever encountered in his entire life.

 

It makes no sense why Lavanza would throw him here, of all places. What, is he supposed to not interfere? Is this the one point that would change his entire life? He supposes it is, because if he hadn’t interfered, he wouldn’t have gotten that criminal record and he wouldn’t have ever gone to Tokyo.

 

Maybe he could avoid everything. He could just… not encounter Masayoshi Shidou. Pretend it all never happened, that he was never the chosen one, and leave Tokyo to settle its own problems. Asking a seventeen-year-old to save the world was a little too much to ask for, anyways.

 

The way his entire body seems to reject the idea startles Akira a little, amusement lining his face as his subconscious directs him to that very alleyway he can describe in his sleep. He knows he would never choose that path, the one where he turns away from everything and live in a fanciful lie. He’s been able to lie to the rest of the world, even to his own team, but he’s never been able to lie to himself.

 

There’s a niggling sense of doubt as he puts his hands in his pockets and tracks down Masayoshi Shidou. This might not even be the night that tragedy had struck him. Maybe it’s just a random night in a place that isn’t Japan, in a world that isn’t his own, and Lavenza messed up. With how often Justine and Caroline messed up fusing Personas, he wouldn’t be surprised if she just overshot his destination.

 

But something in him is pushing him to that alleyway. He crosses a street, looking twice both ways before stepping on the road. It’s a red light, flashing brightly at him to cease his law-breaking as he casually strides across, and the minor delinquency makes Akira want to laugh at himself.

 

Can he even die, if he gets run over? When Lavenza brought him back here, did she bring him back as a human? Maybe he’s some immortal soul, like the Personas he encountered in the Palaces. She won’t be able to catch him off guard with a knife to the chest again, then, he thinks wryly.

 

A familiar sound echoes through the deserted streets. It’s an empty night, exactly the way he remembers it, and his footsteps thump heavily against the concrete as he traces them. It’s been, what, five years? Five long years since this day, but he can follow his footsteps the very same way he did. God, the only thing that could make this weirder would be if-

 

His breath catches in his throat. Akira stares, heart pounding away in his gullet, so loud it deafens any other thought that could be going through his head. There’s no way. There’s no way this can happen- he’s got to be defying some laws of physics right here. Some paradox, something to do with intertwining strands of time, something to do with parallel worlds; there’s some god out there screaming at him right now, he’s sure of it.

 

Akira stares hard, mouth open in a breathless gasp, as a very familiar looking boy stumbles on a crack on the concrete, both hands tucked into his pockets, trying his very best not to look worried as he follows the trail of dubious crying noises and low growls.

 

God, this can’t be real.

 

 

 

It is real. It is very real. He- Akira’s not proud of what he did, but he picked up a rock on the side of the road and threw it at the boy wandering down the street. In his defense, it was a tiny rock, barely a pebble, and all it did was hit the guy at the back of his knee, enough of a distraction to make him trip and look around wildly for the culprit.

 

Akira ducks behind a building and presses a hand across his chest, trying to pretend he isn’t hyperventilating. This cannot be happening. Lavanza, whatever kind of higher power that she is, can’t have this kind of ability. Surely, this is all just a dream. Throwing him back in time is one thing; throwing him back in time to coexist with his seventeen-year-old self is another thing altogether.

 

He suddenly thinks about what he’ll have to do. He’s- he’s not a citizen. He’s not registered as a citizen because he _already exists_. He can’t live here. Akira can’t just sink back into the guise of a good kid with a falsified delinquent record that’s trying to fix the world, because that kid’s walking down the street and getting closer to Masayoshi Shidou. He doesn’t have _parents_ , he realizes faintly, head going dizzy.

 

There literally isn’t a place for him in this world. What on earth was Lavenza thinking? What is he going to do, be homeless for the rest of his life? He’s twenty-two, studying literature at Tokyo University, and now he literally doesn’t exist.

 

Maybe there was more of Caroline in Lavenza than he originally thought, and this is her getting back at him for god knows what. That girl always found something to be mad at him about. Her revenge, following him through time and space to manifest in this form.

 

He swallows tightly. There isn’t much time to contemplate about his position in this world. Baby Akira is inching closer to Masayoshi Shidou with every step and if he’s going to do something, now’s the moment. Now’s the time he needs to intervene and tell Baby Akira that what he’s about to do will change his world for the worst, at first, before it starts hurtling to being the best time of his life.

 

It doesn’t sit right with him if he lets Baby Akira wander into this predicament without having all the information that he can share. But what’s he going to say?

 

“Hey, I’m you from the future, and let me just tell you about how Masayoshi Shidou ruins your life,” he whispers under his breath, and a breathless snicker escapes him. God, what is he supposed to do? He almost wants to look up at the heavens for a sign. Or look in another alleyway and find a blue glow so that he can go in and ask Lavenza what the heck she was thinking.

 

Okay, he decides. He’s going to do it. He’s going to go up and grab Baby Akira by the wrist and stop him in his tracks and explain the situation as best as he can. If he knows himself well – which, duh, he does – Baby Akira will not believe him at all and continue on his path to try and play the hero. But at least his conscience will rest easy.

 

Baby Akira turns a corner, and Akira rushes out behind him, curling his fingers around his wrist, and wonders if he used to be this thin when he was younger.

 

The boy before him jolts, whirling around and staring at him with wide eyes, breath hitching. Akira can see the exact moment it registers, when Baby Akira realizes the man before him looks exactly like him.

 

It’s hilarious, because Akira honestly doesn’t look like he’s aged a day. His hair’s a little longer, cheekbones a little higher, filled out nicely with muscles, but he looks exactly the same. It’s something Ann always needles him about, complaining about how unfair it is that Akira still looks ageless.

 

So yeah, he can understand the confusion of Baby Akira when faced with what is his aged up doppelgänger. Still, amusement curls up in his chest and his lips involuntarily lift up of their own accord. Baby Akira’s bewilderment is cute.

 

“I’ve got to tell you something. Specifically about the guy you’re going to go confront.” Baby Akira opens his mouth, and Akira steamrolls on. “So, he’s got his fingers in every giant corporation in Japan including the police, which I guess isn’t a corporation, but that’s beside the point. Anyways, you’re going to go up to him and that woman, you’re going to try and stop him, and he’ll sue you for assault, _and_ you’ll get a criminal record.”

 

Baby Akira blinks at him for a long while, opening and closing his mouth like a gutless fish, struggling to find the words to respond. The soft cries of the tormented woman reverberate around them. They’re close enough to hear Masayoshi Shidou’s voice carrying across the street, his angry hisses that make the woman whimper.

 

A particularly loud cry makes both of them stiffen. Baby Akira looks towards the alleyway, looks back at the loose grip that Akira has on his wrist, and tugs it out. “Thanks,” he says carefully, looking at Akira like he isn’t sure if he’s faced with a madman or not, and takes a step towards the incident that will change his fate forever. “But she needs help.”

 

Yeah, Akira knew this would happen. It makes him a little happy, actually, knowing that Baby Akira is still this stupidly headstrong. It’s good. He keeps his hands loose at his sides, and shrugs. “It’s your call.”

 

Baby Akira shoots him a weird look, and slowly picks his way over to the couple.

 

It hurts to see the same thing happen, to see Masayoshi Shidou fall over all on his own and force the entire blame onto Baby Akira. There’s shock in the kid’s eyes, like he didn't really expect this outcome, even though Akira literally just told him it would happen.

 

Baby Akira actually tosses a look back, struggling to find Akira as a defense when even the woman doesn’t stick up for him, but Akira can’t risk being found by the police, not like this. He can’t testify for Baby Akira when he doesn’t exist, after all.

 

He watches with a rock in his throat and a pained heart as Baby Akira is forced into a police car with handcuffs tying his wrists behind his back, and Akira resigns himself to sleeping on the street for a while.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to the commenter who was interested in the legalities of the situation, i'm sorry to say Akira is currently a half ghost :") the legalities will come in later when he's more human than ghost, but right now he's 80% ghost aha

Akira realizes he does not have to sleep on the streets when he realizes he isn’t real. Like, he isn’t corporeal. People walk through him, phase through him as if he isn’t there. He can’t walk through walls or ghost through people’s pockets to steal their wallets, though, so he’s the world’s worst phantom thief ever.

 

He stifles a smile at that thought. Making stupid jokes even when he’s discovered he’s apparently only real enough to Baby Akira. Which is something he can’t wrap his mind around, even when he thinks about how so far the only human thing he’s been able to touch is Baby Akira.

 

Maybe it’s something to do with how their DNAs are exact copies of each other. Soulmates, because they literally have the same soul. They’re like made for each other; they’re like twins, but better, because they’re the same person and one of them is a ghost.

 

So that’s probably why he’s here now, leaning against a wall in Baby Akira’s room, waiting for him to wake up. He snuck in here at night, and it’s the night before Baby Akira moves to Tokyo. Before they both move to Tokyo, he supposes, because it’s not like Akira can go anywhere else.

 

He might give Baby Akira a heart attack upon waking up. The thought makes him laugh, and he sits in his old chair, spinning around as he flicks through his phone. He finds one of those mindless games, where numbers are swiped across the screen to add up to a larger number. One of those fake 2048 spinoffs.

 

One downside of being a ghost – he doesn’t have his phone, apparently. Doesn’t have his nice, sleek new phone that he literally _just bought_ , with what was promised as the best camera ever, and now that’s gone.

 

Akira’s about to get a high score when there’s a loud crashing sound from the bed, and a whispered, “what the _fuck_?” from that side of the room. He spins around in the chair a few more times, before coming to a stop right in front of Baby Akira who’s apparently tangled up in the sheets and pressing himself up against the wall, and he has to bite his lip to stop himself from laughing.

 

“So,” he starts, spreading his hands for that Villain Effect, and smiles genially at his younger self. “Apparently, I’m a ghost, and you’re the only one who can see and touch me. Congratulations.”

 

There’s a moment of silence, where he can tell Baby Akira is holding his breath, and then that breath is released with a whoosh. “I’ve got be hallucinating,” his younger self says, and Akira could wipe away a tear at this level of denial.

 

To be fair, he wouldn’t have believed it if his twenty-seven-year-old self magically appeared to him out of nowhere. Actually, being a Phantom Thief really raised his capacity to believe in weird shit. Maybe he _would_ have believed it. Well, he’d never know, would he?

 

Akira laughs, spinning around in his old chair a few more times. He’s missed this. His university dorm’s chairs are all stiff and give him nothing but back aches. This chair is soft and comfortable.

 

“You’re completely sane,” he tells him, and swipes a few more times on his phone. “And you’ve got a new high score. No need to thank me, I know, I’m a genius.”

 

“You- what?” Baby Akira rubs at his eyes, seemingly finally realizing that Akira’s holding his phone, and reaches out to grab it, a scowl on his face. “Give me back my phone! How did you even unlock it?”

 

The grin that pops up on his mouth can probably be classified as evil. “Thumbprint unlock,” Akira says smugly. He locks it, and presses his own thumb against the pad. It flickers back to life instantly, and the face on Baby Akira is golden. “Say hello to your older twin from the future.”

 

His younger self stares at him for a moment, inhaling and exhaling sharply, and buries his head in his hands. “The stress made me lose it,” he mumbles to himself, fingers curling harshly against his hair. “God, is this what being sent to jail turns you into?”

 

And Akira, cruel as it may be, laughs for a while more at Baby Akira’s suffering.

 

 

 

Baby Akira only believes that no one else can see him – or touch him – when they walk to the train station together. His younger self’s got his trusty backpack, a luggage bag, and no one to see him off. His parents are working, busy as ever, and Akira feels something ache when he sees the bitter expression on Baby Akira’s face.

 

“Hey,” he says, bumping his shoulder into Baby Akira’s. The kid shies away, morose expression turning into something grumpy, as if he still refuses to believe Akira. Just for that, Akira turns and walks into someone, knowing that the kid is staring straight at him.

 

He lets about three people walk through him, before he smugly walks back to Baby Akira and pushes his jaw up. “Close your mouth before you get flies in it,” Akira tells him. “There’s a chance your face gets fixed like that, and we can’t ruin such a gorgeous face before it even gets to grow into this,” he finishes, gesturing at his own.

 

“God,” Baby Akira breathes out, disbelief in his eyes. “I grow up into an asshole.”

 

Akira bursts out laughing, a full body laugh that wrecks his entire body and makes him double over. It’s- it’s nice. He hasn’t laughed this hard since finals week. Finals week was three days ago – or five years away, isn’t it? – and then he’d been thrown into this world because Lavenza _killed_ him, and he’d had to wander around while Baby Akira got thrown into jail for a day before his parents got him out.

 

There’s still some part of Baby Akira that doesn’t believe him, Akira thinks, but enough of the kid seems to think he’s telling the truth now. Which, he is, but it’s always nice to have a believer. The kid eyes him up and down, and he makes a disgusted expression.

 

“This is the _height_ of fashion,” Akira tells him, knowing exactly what he’s judging. The too large cardigan, the tucked out shirt that drapes too far down his slim black pants, the sneakers. “I get _all_ the girls. And boys. And cats.”

 

“Cats?” Baby Akira makes a horrified expression that slowly grows into terrified interest. “Are you a- god, are you a furry?”

 

“Wha-” it’s Akira’s turn to stumble over a crack in the ground, eyes wide. He’s choking on air, he’s _got_ to be- “-a furry? What? I meant _literal_ cats, my _god_.”

 

Baby Akira looks torn between glee and sympathy. Something Akira can relate to, and it just drives back the point that they’re the same person. “You’re such a little shit,” he breathes out, rubbing at his nose bridge. It fills him with a bubbly sort of happiness, remembering who he was at this age. Young and stupid. It makes him nostalgic.

 

“And you’re such an old person,” Baby Akira replies, and jerks when someone turns back to frown disapprovingly at him.

 

“They can’t see or hear me,” Akira reminds him, smiling as he tucks his hands in his pockets. Baby Akira frowns, lips turning into a pout as he furrows his brows. “So you just made yourself look like an idiot. Congratulations, Baby Akira.”

 

The kid mouths the words “Baby Akira”, looking appalled. Akira thinks that’s a wonderful name. At any rate, it’s much better than what Morgana called him the first time they met. Frizzy hair, for God’s sake, when his hair is literally God’s gift to this Earth?

 

He muffles a laugh. At this stage, his entire being is probably God’s gift to Earth. The God being Lavenza. He still hasn’t seen hide or hair of the Blue Room, but that might be because the magical phone app hasn’t downloaded itself onto Baby Akira’s phone yet.

 

The train drags into the station, right on time, a little gust of air blowing up both their fringes. They automatically push up their fake glasses at the same time, glancing at each other, and Akira inclines his head at the open doors.

 

It’s almost cute how Baby Akira stares at him for a while longer, as if reassuring himself he’s there, before he steps into the train, dragging his luggage behind him. A little sad, Akira thinks, but it must be nice to have someone follow him all the way to Tokyo, to Yongen-Jaya.

 

He settles in the seat next to Baby Akira, and smiles gently when Baby Akira glances at him. The kid relaxes almost instantly, leaning back into his seat and fishing his headphones out of his bag.

 

The ride to Tokyo is long, and Akira counts himself lucky that no one got the seat next to Baby Akira, so it’s his for the entire ride.

 

 

 

“If you’re a ghost, does that mean you don’t have to eat?”

 

Apparently, the train ride to Tokyo doubles up as twenty questions. Fifty questions, maybe, with how curious Baby Akira is. Not that Akira can blame him, because he’s quite curious about his new ghost form as well.

 

“No idea,” Akira says contemplatively. “I haven’t actually tried. Stealing food isn’t something I’m a fan of.”

 

“Because you’re _so_ good at following the law,” Baby Akira agrees sarcastically, gesturing at themselves. “Criminal record notwithstanding, of course.”

 

“Of course,” Akira laughs, shaking his head. “I mean, I’d _like_ to try. Maybe I could still eat, but not need to have any of the icky body processes involved.”

 

“Do you sleep?”

 

Akira thinks about it. “Yeah, I can still pass out on command. It’s a talent I learnt in university, kid; passing out on command is the best skill you can have.”

 

Baby Akira scrunches up his nose. “Don’t call me kid. And passing out on command doesn’t sound comfortable.”

 

“When you’re running on two hours of sleep, passing out on command is a dream come true. And passing out is like, the best form of sleeping ever,” Akira stresses, patting Baby Akira’s arm for emphasis. “Everything is comfortable. Everything feels great and nothing hurts. And literature can’t hurt you when you’re asleep.”

 

“You take literature?” It’s a curious question, but the way Baby Akira says it sounds mildly judgmental. Hilarious, because Akira honestly went through a brief period in his life – likely a mid-life crisis, he suspects – where he, too, sat himself down and thought if he was becoming a true hipster university student that took literature and drank copious amounts of coffee. And yes, yes he was, as Futaba and Ann took extreme pleasure in reminding him of.

 

He shrugs, and Baby Akira seems to know that that’s as much of an answer he can give. It’s good that they know each other so well, because there’s not much of a reason he can give. What can he say? He remembers reading about his friends’ Personas, and since all of them were somehow figures from great literary works, he got pulled into literature.

 

It’s an interesting topic, at its core, no matter what seventeen-year-old him thinks of it at this point.

 

He stares out of the window, and the corner of his lips tick up as he watches Baby Akira fidget in his seat, probably wondering if it’s alright to ask another question. The kid makes up his mind in the end, leaning forward and opening his mouth with curiosity in his eyes.

 

“Are you supposed to tell me everything that happens? Like, change my- _our_ fate, or something? Make it better?” He pauses, and as if thinking better of it, adds on, “not that your fate isn’t good, because you kind of look happy, but you’re here for a reason, right? And how did you come here anyways?”

 

Akira spends a good long minute thinking about how to summarize the entire experience of the Blue Room into a few words. How to accurately describe the maelstrom that was Justine and Caroline. And the entire mess that was the fake god and Igor.

 

There aren’t enough words, he decides. Still, he supposes he should give an answer. “I got killed,” he says, and holds back a laugh when Baby Akira startles into dropping the packaged red bean bread he was about to rip open. He picks it up and puts it back in the kid’s hands, rolling eyes when Baby Akira makes a face.

 

“I honestly don’t know how or why it happened. She said she was going to fix things, and I suppose I wasn’t exactly satisfied with how everything ended, because some people that didn’t need to be… _hurt_ , were hurt, and someone… important, to me, just disappeared entirely.” Akira stills, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back into his seat. “Maybe she brought me back here to change this.”

 

Baby Akira looks like he wants to press further, mouth ready to open and shoulders tense with questions, so Akira decides to just indulge him with as much information as he thinks he should give. “She’s sort of a friend, but I probably shouldn’t tell you about her. I think there are a lot of things you should still find out by yourself, so I won’t interfere that much. Just maybe with the person I felt I should have saved. Changing his fate will… probably change all of our fates. But the rest of it should run its natural course.”

 

“So, a friend killed you, and whatever’s in my future involves more people getting hurt?” Baby Akira takes a thoughtful bite of his bread and swallows. “Interesting life. Sounds terrible.”

 

“It was _great_ ,” Akira enthuses, and the kid laughs, taking a larger bite of his bread. “You’ll see. You kind of just fall into it, too fast to back out, but it’s really great. You make the best friends you’ll ever have. And they stay with you throughout the next five years.”

 

He- he’s getting teary eyed. God, Baby Akira is looking at him in alarm and patting his pockets to see if he has tissues nearby. If Akira remembers correctly, the tissues are all in his bag, not his pockets, because he recalls fishing them out when the air conditioner turned down in the train.

 

It’s only just hitting him that Ryuji, Ann, Makoto- they’re all- they don’t exist in this world at all. His versions, at least. In this world, they’re all strangers right now, waiting for Baby Akira to crash into their worlds and make them revolve around him like planets around the Sun. It will be wonderful and amazing and so adorable to see them all awkward at first, but just the thought of it is painful now.

 

The word he’s looking for is bittersweet, Akira thinks, pretending he’s not crying as he gratefully accepts the tissues from Baby Akira, who’s finally found them in his bag. Now all he has is this kid, the only person who can see or touch him, and it’s- it’s terrifying, he discovers, but he can’t be nervous in front of Baby Akira.

 

Baby Akira, who’s already looking horrified, at a loss as to what to do with a teary Akira. Baby Akira, who couldn’t prevent the disappearance of Goro Akechi, who couldn’t save President Okumura, who couldn’t save more people before Masayoshi Shidou carried out all his crimes.

 

Baby Akira needs all the guidance he can give, to _fix_ things, and Akira can’t let him down.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been thinking of having the phantom thieves/ people who've been in the meta verse before be able to see Akira... wouldn't that be interesting :>

He remembers how much he disliked Sojiro at first when they meet him again for the “first time”. Sojiro grumbles all the way, complaining about how Baby Akira is _such_ a burden and how lucky the kid is to have a place to live and a school to accept him. That he better not cause Sojiro any trouble at all.

 

Baby Akira seems to huddle in on himself, curling further and further in until he resembles a ball more than a human. Akira sighs, reaching forward and squeezing Baby Akira’s shoulder.

 

“Sojiro is very rough around the edges,” he explains, even though it’s not much of an excuse at all. “It takes him a while to warm up to you. And he thinks your criminal record of assault is real, for one.”

 

Immediately, the kid bristles. Sojiro casts him a glance mid-driving, surprised at the way his shoulders tensed.

 

“I didn’t assault the guy,” Baby Akira declares, fists clenching in his pants. Sojiro’s eyes dart down to see them before flashing back to the road again. There’s not much to see on the road, not when there’s still a jam on the way back to Café Leblanc. But it gives Sojiro something to look at, at least, when he’s avoiding Baby Akira’s gaze.

 

Akira can respect that level of deflection, even if it’s not particularly helpful to Baby Akira’s case right now.

 

“I don’t particularly care,” Sojiro replies stonily, pretending to put on a mask of indifference.

 

“He’s a giant softie,” Akira tells the kid, smile turning sad when his fingers pass through Sojiro’s form like he didn’t even try to touch the man’s shoulder. “He really is. He just likes to think that if he doesn’t care, if you mess up, he won’t be as attached.”

 

Baby Akira looks at him in the rearview mirror, probably gauging how much he can convince Sojiro of his innocence, and decides to continue. “There was a couple, and the drunk guy tried to force himself on a woman. I stepped in. The drunk guy tripped over thin air and fell, and then he called the police and blamed me for attacking him.”

 

“And you expect me to believe that story?” The lines around Sojiro’s face aren’t as harsh as they were a second ago. Akira doesn’t need to hear the answer- he knows Sojiro believes the story. He also knows what he looks like – Baby Akira doesn’t look like a delinquent, not at all. He doesn’t look like a nerd, doesn’t look like a delinquent; he doesn’t look like someone messed up enough to attack someone else, and Akira knows that _Sojiro_ knows that.

 

Baby Akira falls quiet at that question. Akira makes the executive decision not to step in. They need to grow into their relationship by themselves. Sojiro becomes something like a father to him, after the one year of “fostering”, and that’s a relationship that can’t be rushed.

 

“No,” the kid says eventually, shrugging. “But I like to think you’ll at least hear me out. You seem like the type to do that.”

 

Playing the understanding card, Akira thinks, and nods approvingly at Baby Akira. Sojiro, as predicted, winces sharply and trains his gaze very carefully on the road. The road that’s moved like maybe two inches since the last time he looked at it.

 

“I’ll reserve judgment for now, kid,” Sojiro says finally, and Baby Akira mouths the word “kid” unhappily under his breath, narrowing his eyes at Akira.

 

Akira shrugs, grinning unrepentantly. “What can I say? You’re a kid.”

 

“It’s literally just five years,” he mumbles under his breath, pretending to have stayed silent when Sojiro shoots him an inquisitive look.

 

“Oh, what’s going to happen in this one year ages you like, ten years, easy,” Akira replies, and _god_ , he loves it when he startles the kid.

 

 

 

Seeing Café Leblanc again is like coming home. It’s like missing something he didn’t even know he had missed, filling up a giant, gaping hole in his chest and making him feel all warm inside.

 

He feels the urge to start cooking curry behind the counter, just because it’s sitting right there for him, waiting to be used. He wants to go swing off that thick beam in his room – that apparently can survive the apocalypse – and do a few pull-ups, just because it’s waiting for him to use it. He wants to wander over to Futaba’s house and drag her out of her room and save her from her demons, just because she’s sitting there waiting for him to save her.

 

Baby Akira raises an eyebrow at him, jaw tensing when Akira stops outside Café Leblanc and just stares at the café for a moment. It looks as if the kid wants to say something, before he eventually follows Sojiro in, making sure to leave the door open just a crack so that Akira can follow through after.

 

What a thoughtful kid, Akira mulls, running a hand over the indents in the door frame, brushing a finger across the swaying leaves outside, checking the few plants that Sojiro owns and seeing if they’re well watered.

 

He didn’t have much time to visit Leblanc while in university. None of them did, because life had finally caught up to them and the workload in university makes their high school examinations look like a joke. They were supposed to meet up soon, the whole gang, back at the café and cracking jokes and making Sojiro sigh patiently, just like old times, and-

 

Akira tries his very best to put the thought out of his head. He doesn’t want to blame Lavenza, he really doesn’t, and he _knows_ deep down that she surely brought him back here for a reason. Lavenza isn’t an idiot; Justine and Caroline aren’t idiots, so there must have been a very good reason for her to decide this would work. And yes, he’s spent the better part of five years lamenting the outcome of the whole incident, and how he wasn’t able to save Akechi from his own demons, so the chance to fix it all is- it’s welcome. It’s a really good thing.

 

It also makes him want to stab himself all over again, because now he can sit inside of Leblanc all he wants, and Sojiro’s eyes will just pass over him like he’s air.

 

Pretending to ignore the ache in his heart doesn’t make him feel better, but it makes him feel less bad, so he pushes the door open and lets Sojiro believe the wind caused the jingle in the doorway.

 

He closes the door carefully behind him and stares at the interior of Leblanc, as if seeing it all for the first time again. It’s honestly been ages since he’s been back here. Sojiro changed the seats after three years, keeping half of them old and antique and stiff-backed, and turned the tables pressed up in the corners to the ones with padded seats and soft backs.

 

The bar table doesn’t look as well used. Not enough stains on it, where the gang messed up and couldn’t clean up the spilled curry fast enough before it sank into the grain of the wood. The chip in the corner isn’t there, when a rowdy customer accidentally slammed into it and broke it off before Akira and Ryuji strong-armed him out.

 

It all looks younger. But Sojiro looks younger and older all at once; he’s bogged down by the stress of Futaba’s current state, but free of the burden of knowledge of the Phantom Thieves and their delinquent ways.

 

He follows their voices up to the attic. The two of them are standing around awkwardly, Sojiro hovering near the stairs while Baby Akira hesitantly picks his way around the room. It’s a mess – it had been a mess even when the year was up, cluttered with all the random things he had collected, so he supposes its current state isn’t half bad. A little dusty, but nothing that can’t be fixed up.

 

Sojiro says something about wanting Baby Akira to behave in school before walking straight through Akira, shuddering slightly and frowning at the ceiling as he does so. Akira peers down the stairs to watch him go – can people tell when they pass through him? He hasn’t exactly been paying a lot of attention to people’s reactions, just acknowledging that they can’t see or touch him and moving on right away.

 

Maybe he could become a poltergeist in the future. Make a career out of it. It’s not like he’s a fake ghost, after all.

 

Baby Akira settles on the bed, shaking the pillow free of dust and smoothing out the creases on the covers. He takes a long look around the room, gaze pausing for a moment on Akira’s form, before continuing around. He inhales sharply, holding the breath in his mouth, and lets it go in a small burst.

 

He looks very small, all of a sudden, and Akira wonders if he had looked like that five years ago.

 

“Hey,” he says, moving over to settle on his- _their_ , couch. “It’s not so bad.”

 

Baby Akira bites his lip and buries his face in the pillow. “It’s not so bad,” the kid agrees, voice heavily muffled by the fabric. His shoulders are trembling slightly, fingers tightly curling around the pillow.

 

Akira knew he had a minor breakdown after moving into the attic above Leblanc, but he hadn’t thought it was like _this_. And he’s not sure what to do, looking at it from an outsider’s perspective. He knows Baby Akira is fully capable of dealing with this by himself – he’s the living proof of it, five years later, completely well adjusted and emotionally sane.

 

The kid can work through it. But somehow, watching him shake on the edge of his bed in a new city and an unfamiliar room that’s dusty as all hell makes Akira’s heartache. He would have wanted someone to tell him it’s going to be okay, no matter how cheesy that sounds. Sometimes cheesy is good. Sometimes cheesy is great.

 

“It’s just-” Baby Akira sighs, voice still a little choked up, and Akira doesn’t have to see his face to know his eyes are red- “-I wish I didn’t have to be here. That my parents would have tried harder to convince my school to keep me. That I could still be at _home_.”

 

Oh yeah, he knows all about it. “Tell me about it,” Akira says, shaking his head. “You’ll be fine, kid. It hurts now, but tomorrow will be fantastic, because you’ll meet your best friend.”

 

“Maybe you’ll jinx it by telling me about it,” the kid replies sullenly, but there’s a lilt to his voice that wasn’t there before. “Are they nice?”

 

Akira laughs fondly, trying to pretend he’s not worried about actually jinxing Baby Akira’s future. “Ryuji’s the best. Literally, the absolute best. I would- I would give anything to see him again.”

 

There’s an awkward silence in the room, where they both act as if they’re not emotionally torn up, and the kid says, “you’ve still got me, at least.”

 

Akira bursts into laughter again, throwing a hand across his eyes and pressing hard against them to stop himself from tearing up. “Ah yeah,” he murmurs quietly, remembering how rough the couch always was on his back. “I’ve still got you, kid.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want ghost akira to haunt kamoshida into repentance.

The sun filters in through the window and he almost forgets where he is for a moment. Akira expects to turn over and feel Morgana’s tail tickling his chin, or maybe if he focuses, he can hear the cat’s yelling from the kitchen to start cooking. He huffs out a laugh, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, and sits up blearily.

 

And then he realizes he’s in _a_ Leblanc, not _his_ Leblanc, with a boy still fast asleep just a short distance away, head barely visible above the blankets, and Morgana is nowhere in sight.

 

It’s maybe about six-forty? Six-fifty? Early in the morning, at any rate, and Baby Akira is still quietly sleeping, burying himself further into the bed and pretending he doesn’t have school.

 

He stares at the kid for a while more, tilts his head back to look up at the beam that doesn’t have the grooves from his fingers etched into them, and sighs so hard his shoulders rise and fall with the effort.

 

“C’mon,” he says, stretching as he moves over to Baby Akira, nudging the shapeless form with his knee. “Up and at them, Baby Akira. You better not be late on your first day of school.”

 

“St’p it,” the kid murmurs incoherently back, shuffling around in bed for a while before abruptly sitting up and rubbing his eyes fiercely. “God,” he says, throat working furiously as he drinks in the sight of Akira. “I thought it was a dream.”

 

“Must be nice, dreaming of yourself,” Akira teases, and leans over him to throw the windows open. It’s still slightly sunny outside, but there are clouds in the sky and they’re growing darker every second. “You might get caught in the rain if you take your sweet time to get ready.”

 

Baby Akira looks contemplative at that. “Y’know, I already have a criminal record,” he says slowly, eyes lighting up. “Missing one day of school can’t contribute much to it, can it?”

 

Akira rolls his eyes, but his lips are pulling up into a grin, and he nods easily. “Yeah,” he muses, making himself comfortable on the bed as Baby Akira stares out of the window. And then the kid sighs, getting up to pull on his brand new uniform, and it makes Akira chuckle.

 

“Yeah, you good kid,” he says fondly. “Go to school like a good boy with no delinquent tendencies.”

 

“I’m only going to school because you said I’d meet my best friend,” Baby Akira shoots back in a begrudging tone. “I have very high expectations for him.”

 

The kid rummages around in his bag, checking that he has everything he needs, and stands, ready to leave Leblanc. He pauses for a moment, turning back to eye Akira warily.

 

“You’re not coming?”

 

Akira stretches out in the bed, leaning against the pillow and crossing his arms behind his head. “Hmm… nah. It’s going to rain soon. And a rainy day is a great day to sleep in.”

 

“Lazy,” Baby Akira tells him, amusement threading through his voice, and then he’s off, greeting Sojiro on the way out and hurrying off to school.

 

Akira lies in bed for a while longer, thinking about what he plans to do for today, and realizes his entire to-do list consists of finding the Blue Room and finding Akechi. Maybe if he manages to convince Baby Akira that Akechi is important, they’ll manage to rescue the wannabe detective prince from all his inner demons. Maybe they’ll manage to stop Masayoshi Shidou before he hurts more people.

 

That’s a lot of possibilities running through his mind, and he decides finding Akechi and getting a good idea of his daily life is a good place to start.

 

 

 

He doesn’t find Akechi. In his defense, Baby Akira took his phone with him, and Akira can’t just go around to random computers to access the Internet without alerting people as to some kind of paranormal activity. Computer randomly switching on? Still explainable. Computer going online to google Goro Akechi’s school? The police have got a paranormal stalker on their hands, boys.

 

So he just wanders around Yongen-Jaya instead. He loiters at the train station for a while, as if Akechi might pop up like he’s being summoned with how hard Akira is thinking about him. All he ends up seeing is the train passing by five times, and he thinks about how Baby Akira is probably meeting Morgana now.

 

Akira feels a slight temptation to go to school. To see Ann, mostly. And maybe Mishima. It must still be ages before exams, right? Maybe a couple months, so school must be a breeze right now. Honestly, everything in school pales in comparison to university.

 

And it’s not like there’s anything – or anyone – waiting for him back at Leblanc right now.

 

He hides a laugh behind his hands as he finds himself following the familiar path back to Shujin. He can just imagine Ann stressing out over her grades, or her smacking Ryuji over the head for messing up another English conjugation. There really can’t be anything-

 

No, he thinks abruptly. It can’t be. He knows time has been reversed, that everything the Phantom Thieves has done is completely erased from this version of history, but _no_.

 

He quickens his pace to the school, rushing past the hallway and passing the gym.

 

A loud, angry voice reverberates through the gym, floating out to smack Akira in the side of his head and waking him up sharply. He stills, heart pounding in his chest, before he runs to the open door and peers inside.

 

It’s- god, the sight of him makes Akira want to froth at the mouth.

 

Kamoshida Suguru is alive, not in jail, and terrorizing the students like it’s just another day for him.

 

He’s got a large hand around Mishima’s wrist, almost crushing it in his tight grip, and Akira can see the wince Mishima tries to hide. He can see the bruises already beginning to form around Kamoshida’s grip – he can’t stop himself. The anger washes over him absentmindedly, a background to the disgust somersaulting in his gut.

 

At age twenty-two, looking back, he can’t see Kamoshida as anything but a bully who never got what he wanted in life, so he tries to make himself feel better by hurting those who can’t defend themselves. At age twenty-two, he recognizes the giant man-child that Kamoshida is; his immaturity, his childishness, his inability to consider the aftermath of his actions – it’s all very clear to him now.

 

He would be able to throw this man in jail. He just knows it. He knows how to collect evidence and lay it out straight to the police. Corrupted as they may be, as long as he brings it to the media and makes a big fuss out of it, the police will find that their hands are tied. If it comes down to it, if Kamoshida actually had the mental capacity to hide his tracks well enough, Akira isn’t even above falsifying evidence.

 

It wouldn’t _really_ be false, after all. He’s just replicating all the evidence that Kamoshida hid.

 

But he’s a ghost who can’t touch humans, so his hands are tied.

 

Or maybe, Akira thinks, eyeing the volleyballs strewn over the court, he can touch something else.

 

 

 

Here’s the thing. Akira can’t touch humans. He can’t touch the clothes they’re wearing, the items they’re holding or keeping on their body, and he can’t touch them himself.

 

Can he touch a volleyball?

 

Yes.

 

He grins darkly to himself, tucking two balls beneath his left arm and picking one up with his right. Someone gasps, pointing sharply at what must appear to be floating balls, and it attracts more attention. He can hear people whispering about it, wondering if they’re all suffering from a mass hallucination induced from stress. Balls don’t just- they don’t just pick themselves up and float in mid-air, after all.

 

Akira aims, pulls his arm back, and throws. And, well, being a Phantom Thief has made his aim simply _exceptional_. And he’s been working out recently. Five years in the future, that is.

 

The volleyball slams into Kamoshida’s back with enough force to make the sound of their collision echo throughout the silent gym.

 

The man instantly drops Mishima’s arm, turning around slowly, eyes narrowed. There might be actual hatred burning in them, Akira thinks, nonplussed, and throws another ball up and down in his grip.

 

“Who’s fooling around with those balls there?” Kamoshida growls the question out, and it hangs unanswered in the terrified silence. The students won’t understand it,  _can’t_ understand it – because Akira’s a goddamn ghost – and they don’t have an explanation for him. Not that Kamoshida would accept an explanation at all. He just wants to find someone else to hurt.

 

Kamoshida repeats the question, yelling it out, and quite a few students jolt in their spots, huddling together and avoiding eye contact. Everyone is avoiding eye contact. Mishima has escaped far away to press himself against the side of the gym. His classmates, who normally ignore him, have decided to adopt a classic herd mentality of sticking together in the face of abnormalities.

 

The abnormality being Akira throwing the second volleyball into Kamoshida’s _face_.

 

Ah, hearing the sound of Kamoshida’s nose break might just be Akira’s new favorite sound. The smile that blooms over his face is very difficult to hold back.

 

Kamoshida howls like a mad wolf, thick fingers scrabbling frantically at his broken nose and feeling the blood gushing from it. The students are all slowly inching to the exit, wary eyes trained on him the way prey watches its distracted predator, and Akira can see them constantly glance back to the last floating ball.

 

He lets it fly, pulling his arm back and slinging it across, and he’s very lucky he hits his target. The target being Kamoshida’s crotch, because that sorry excuse of a human being deserves to be stripped of the ability to be a father. Or to ever have sex again.

 

The man lets out a pitiful whine, palms instantly cupped over his groin as he falls to his knees, and in the ensuing silence, all that Akira can hear is Kamoshida’s whimpers.

 

A flurry of activity restarts after three shell-shocked seconds of students staring at Kamoshida’s prostrate form, and the gym is emptied at the speed of light.

 

It’s just Akira, a bunch of balls, a sorry volleyball net swinging from two poles and Kamoshida, hunched over, chin against his chest as his head’s ducked down, a hand across his crotch and a hand curling into a tight fist on the ground.

 

“Who the _fuck_ ,” he starts, voice trembling, growing louder with every word, “who the absolute fuck _dared_ to-”

 

There’s pure, unbridled fury in his eyes, and Akira can’t even bring himself to stay to listen to his vent. He tucks his hands in his pockets and makes sure to walk through Kamoshida, just to watch the man stop his furious yelling and shudder. Akira briefly wonders if there’s a chill going down the man’s spine, if he can tell there’s a particularly angry and not so benevolent spirit hanging around that’s only here to face him.

 

Then he realizes he shouldn’t be wasting his time on a man like Kamoshida, and decides to go back home.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a review on your way out or drop by my [twitter](https://twitter.com/zxrysky) and [tumblr](http://zxrysky.tumblr.com/)


End file.
